Have your say

Hey there, time traveller!This article was published 15/11/2012 (1484 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Complaining never ends

Re: City plowing ahead with its snow zones (Nov. 15). It gets so frustrating listening to the never-ending complaining about everything that happens in the city. Now it's restaurant owners complaining about snow removal.

Maybe the owner of the Grove wants a system where all business owners can send in the time they want the streets around their restaurants cleaned. He could request say from 2:17 a.m. to 4:49 a.m. Not any earlier because he is still open and not any later because his chef may be coming in early.

I think this new system is great. I knew the exact 12 hours my street was to be cleaned and it was within two days of the storm. Super job! I guarantee if the city were slow cleaning the streets, these people would be the first to complain. You just can't please some people.

KEN McLEAN

Winnipeg

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I am all for the streets getting plowed ahead of time but the grader that came down our street left a three-foot-high snow pile blocking my driveway, as well as every driveway on the block. It took well over an hour for a tractor to come to clean the driveways.

I do not feel that is an efficient way to be plowing the streets. It makes it impossible for residents to leave their homes in case of an emergency. I think city administrators need to review their systems and think about the safety of the people that pay their salaries.

TREVOR TESSIER

Winnipeg

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I'm a homeowner and I think the new system is great. I was inconvenienced for less than 12 hours, instead of the former three days. Even though the ban was from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., my street was cleaned by 10:30 p.m., so we could go back on the street. Could the plan have been better communicated? Sure, but the city is taking that into account when forgiving the parking tickets.

If I were a restaurant owner like Miles Gould and were concerned about where my clients could park, I'd get on that Interweb thingy and, when a patron calls, tell them, "Well, no, you can't pull up right in front of the restaurant (as all Winnipeggers think is their God-given right), but we've checked the city's website and you can park on Street X. And because that's a bit inconvenient for you, we're offering free hors d'oeuvres tonight."

DAVE FERGUSON

Winnipeg

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I'm curious what the city was thinking residents would do when it drew up some of the new residential parking ban zones.

Zone G extends all the way from the Red River over to Waverley and from Taylor up to the Assiniboine River. This zone, bound by two rivers, is at least two kilometres on each side and includes all of Crescentwood, Roslyn, Rockwood, Grant Park, a small slice of River Heights, and a few other neighbourhoods. What reasonable options does that leave for overnight parking for residents who don't have access to underground parking, a garage or a driveway?

The reality is that parts of this area are medium-density residential with a number of apartments and condos, and not everyone has such a parking spot. In the past, smaller zones and east-west vs. north-south streets were cleared on separate nights, and this provided residents with reasonable options.

Looking across the river, this still seems to be case in zones B and D with alternating streets, so why not extend this logic to the whole system?

KONSTANTIN JILKINE

Winnipeg

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Excuse me. People, it snowed. Lots.

Get your vehicles and garbage bins off the road so the plows can clear up the snow.

Where did everyone's common sense go?

SYLVIA GABRIEL

Winnipeg

Defining extremism

In his Nov. 1 piece, Republican reboot, Allan Levine joins a chorus of commentators with recipes for the Republican Party in the U.S. to avoid extinction. One would think Mitt Romney had failed to register at the polls, as opposed to winning 48.4 per cent of the popular vote, compared with Barack Obama's 50.4.

Others, who are less excited by the agenda of President Obama, suggest better approaches to immigration and to the Latino community alone would have put Romney over the top.

I did find Levine's history of the party of Lincoln fascinating and helpful. However, I disagree with his recipe for its revival, namely that "extremism" on social issues is costing the party dearly.

We are the first generation in the history of western civilization to put its stamp of approval on abortion on demand and on sexual activity between persons of the same sex. So in comparison to all those generations gone before, it is the innovators who are taking rather extreme steps.

More civil and fair discourse would be in order rather than attempts to marginalize these time-honoured positions. Todd Akins did not say there is "legitimate rape." He implied, albeit with clumsy syntax, that sometimes people claim to be raped who weren't. Big difference. His point, which he managed to obscure, is that all human life is precious.

As for gay sex and "bondage," the magna carta of our civilization, the Bible, explains that all sexual intimacy outside of heterosexual marriage is bondage, gay or straight. Levine may disagree, but this has been one of the foundations of our civilization. I urge him to avoid the "seat of mockers" (Psalm 1) and present considered arguments.

DONALD JAMES

Winnipeg

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I offer this correction to the otherwise interesting column by Allan Levine. The Republicans did not replace the Democrats in the South in the '50s, as he says, but rather in the '60s.

MICHAEL DOOB

Winnipeg

Destination of choice

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights is extremely pleased at the news of the major expansion to the Winnipeg Convention Centre (Convention centre hits big time, Nov. 14).

The ability to host large, world-class conferences -- combined with the attraction of a new national museum at The Forks -- will attract tens of thousands of additional visitors to our city each year.

The museum is already fielding dozens of inquiries from national organizations and businesses looking for an interesting venue for conventions and annual meetings. Winnipeg's array of new showcase attractions and stunning architecture (both old and new) are bound to make us a new destination of choice.

We congratulate the convention centre and everyone who is making its revitalization possible. This is an essential component for the future of our city's economy.

STUART MURRAY

Canadian Museum for Human Rights

Heeding the plea

One sincerely hopes that Oleksandra Gaskevych's plea to Canadians in the Nov. 12 article Please, Canada, stand up for democracy in Ukraine will not go unheeded.

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